Shomron Regional Council head Yossi Dagan ‘shocked’ by ‘dishonest’ IDF statement on Homesh
The head of the Shomron Regional Council (Samaria), Yossi Dagan, has issued a public statement condemning what he described as a “dishonest” announcement made by the IDF Spokesman regarding settlers who went to the Homesh outpost Sunday morning.
Homesh day after the attack Photo: Ehud Amitan TPS
The IDF said that they did so in an effort to try and illegally build new structures on the site.
The move by the settlers came in response to the murder of yeshiva student Yehuda Dimentman last Thursday night by Arab terrorists. Dimentman died after being shot in the neck and two other people were wounded. He left behind a widow and a ten-month-old baby boy. People are calling for the legalization of the settlement and its yeshiva in response to the attack.
Yehuda Dimentman
TPS reported earlier that the IDF spokesman’s office claimed the people engaged in acts of violence that soldiers, Border Police, and regular police tried to block the people from getting close to Homesh and that the protestors hurled verbal abuse at them, vandalized military property and blocked the passage of security forces. In addition, an IDF fighter was slightly injured as a result of being hit by one of the protestors.
But Yossi Dagan has denied these allegations.
“I am shocked by the newly manipulative IDF Spokesman’s announcement regarding the students of Yeshivat Homesh,” he said. “The grave of Judah, the victim of the attack, is still fresh, and the IDF spokesman denounces his comrades for no wrong done on their part.”
Dagan said that the videos of Sunday’s incident circulated by an IDF spokesman show that there was no settler violence. He said that, on the contrary, the only violence seen in the videos is that of a soldier pushing a civilian.
“It is unfortunate and illegitimate that an IDF spokesman produces manipulations to blacken the pioneering settlers,” he said. “I condemn the IDF Spokesman’s indecent conduct, which harms the army first and foremost.”
Dagan went on to call on the government of Israel to legitimize the Yeshiva of Homesh, which is not currently recognized as a legal structure under Israeli law.
This followed a media conference at which Etya Dimentman, the widow of Yehuda Dimentman said the Government of Israel must properly establish the Yeshiva of Chomesh in Samaria “as an answer to the murder.”
Holding her son David, EtyaDimentman talks to the media
Yehuda Dimentman left behind his parents and 11 brothers as well as Etya and his son David.
Speaking after the deadly attack for the first time on Sunday, Etya said that “Yehuda did not leave me a will. Yesterday a friend of his showed me that they asked him six and a half years ago what he would do if he had only a week left to live, he replied – ‘study Torah in Chomesh’. This is his will,” she said with pain.
During the 2005 unilateral disengagement from Gaza, Israel evicted a bloc of 17 communities in the Strip and four communities in northern Samaria, including Chomsesh. Israeli leaders have since called to return to the area, and a Yeshiva exists in Chomesh, at which Yehuda was a student.
Etya addressed Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and said that “there is a yeshiva in Chomesh, they give their lives, they are our [elite] General Staff reconnaissance unit, soldiers without uniforms. The people of Israel ask you to establish the yeshiva, to secure it, to allow the people of Israel to go up there.”
“Yehudah’s blood is too precious. It is impossible to return to a routine when the blood of such a pure soul is shed,” she added. “I feel Yehudah all the time and he is asking through me to build Chomesh.”
“I have only one hope and a request from Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. That his murder will not be in vain. I call on the Prime Minister to arrange the Chomesh Yeshiva – bring us home. Take care of the boys. That there will be no more widows like me. That there will be no more orphans like David [her son],” she asked.
However, the government employed the opposite policy on Sunday, blocking the students’ access to the Yeshiva and levelling several structures erected at the site on Saturday night.
